


heading north on abacus wires

by Eddaic



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, added some mccoy because i love him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 03:09:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11500530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eddaic/pseuds/Eddaic
Summary: Spock should come with a warning sign.





	heading north on abacus wires

**heading north on abacus wires**

Jim doesn’t miss the botanical gardens near the Academy, but he knows he will.

The wonder and shock are still too gripping for him to be nervous. He has practiced his smile for days, but quickly realises there had been no need; the ache for wind and turf is already receding, nudged back by the row of curious faces.

He had memorised the names of his senior crew beforehand, but waits patiently for them to introduce themselves. Mr. Spock – whom Jim recognises as the erstwhile first officer of Captain Pike – nods his head instead of raising his hand in the _ta’al._

“There’s no need to conceal your heritage in front of me,” Jim says as pleasantly as he can, hoping he hasn’t come across as impolite by accident. He gives a strained approximation of the salute, and is relieved when Mr. Spock returns it impassively.

( _Ruthless. Cold._ _Too loyal to PikeJimdon’texpecttoomuchfromhim._ )

Jim kicks back the accusations he has heard directed at Mr. Spock and gives a grin big enough to hurt his cheeks.

***

Apparently, it is unseemly for captains to permit any crew members in their quarters outside of professional reasons. Jim is in the midst of giving Scott and Mr. Spock a casual tour of his bedroom.

There’s not much to show, but he offers them coffee and asks them to sit down. They refuse both the drink and the seats. Propriety, it seems, is regarded highly by his personnel. Jim swells with pride (they're so well-trained, his crew... _his_ _crew_ ), though a part of him sinks. It looks as though being captain means standing on one side of a rift while instructing a group of people on the other.

He perks up when Scott presses his nose against the glass of the terrarium by the porthole.

“Why, Captain! If that isn’t the prettiest piece of greenery I’ve ever seen in a jar. Did you plant it yourself?”

“I did,” says Jim, walking over and trying desperately to not launch into a long ramble about plants and gardening. Since he can’t bounce on the balls of his feet (a bad habit picked up from Bones, much to the doctor’s glee) in front of his crew, he keeps his arms rigidly by his sides and strives not to fidget.

Mr. Spock speaks for the first time since he entered. “’Prettiness’ is an illogical reason to stare at plants for so long.”

It’s a rather…rude statement to make. Technically. But Mr. Spock delivers it with such grim seriousness that Jim only chuckles.

Scott glares. “Well, I thought you’d like this little garden, Mr. Spock. After all, you and these cactuses have much in common.”

“I fail to see any similarity between myself and a succulent plant native to Earth.”

By now Jim is laughing so hard he’s collapsed on the edge of his bed with his face in his hands. When he finally stops there are tears on his cheeks and Scott is looking concerned, scandalised, and a bit like he’s on the verge of sending an emergency message to Bones.

Jim pours them coffee despite their protests, and makes them stay another hour. They sit at a rickety table and chat about blissfully insignificant things (or, Jim and Scott chat while Mr. Spock stares ahead, his back ramrod straight). The coffee is too strong and tastes like old wood shavings and makes Scott turn an interesting shade of green, and Jim is the most content he’s been in his first week aboard the _Enterprise_.

***

Jim likes playing chess against the computer. This is because there is actually a chance of him losing. He has never been exceptionally bright, or exceptionally fit, or exceptionally talented – just exceptionally dogged – but the only games of chess he has lost were to his mother, in those early years when she mentored him and was his sole opponent.

His games with Mr. Spock become routine by accident.

It’s late. The doors open with a quiet hiss, and Mr. Spock strides in, and Jim is bored so he offhandedly challenges him. Mr. Spock eases himself into a chair without protest, and within fifteen minutes has Jim vanquished not once but twice. Jim leans back and laughs, and Mr. Spock looks at him with raised eyebrows. “Is there something humans find amusing about failure?” he says.

Jim asks Mr. Spock to play nearly every day after that, and Mr. Spock never refuses. He becomes, after a while, somewhat perturbed at Mr. Spock’s willingness to breathe the same air as him; Vulcans are not known for their amicability, or their tolerance for bodily proximity.

It takes Jim a fortnight and a finger of brandy to break down and blurt, “You know, when I ask you to play with me, I’m not ordering you.”

Mr. Spock does not immediately reply, continuing to contemplate the board. Jim is about to repeat his question when Mr. Spock says, “I’m aware,” and then checkmates him.

It is during these games (invites, after a time, are forgotten) that Mr. Spock becomes plain old Spock, and that Jim hears his own name ( _Jim_ , not Captain Kirk, not Sir) fall from that severe mouth. He decides he likes the way it sounds. Soft. Warm, like the earth under the Iowan sun in summer. He wants to hold it in his hand.

***

When Spock is heavily injured on a mission on a Class M planet and spends the night in sickbay, Jim plays against the computer again. He's alone in the rec room and is vaguely uneasy, as if floating in some in-between. It's almost an unpleasant sensation; it would be if it were stronger. If there were a distinct way of feeling haunted, this would be it.

He tells Bones about it in passing at breakfast the next morning. Bones hums, stabs a poached egg, and says, "I've heard of that."

Later, Jim looks up the term 'liminal space' in the computer system. Then he gets up and carefully avoids thinking about the topic.

***

Jim is not devoutly religious.

He cannot remember the last time he saw his mother pray, but while they were still in Iowa they sometimes visited the creaking town church on Sundays and kept a Bible on the slim lacquered bookshelf in their living room. Having a bookshelf is a rather outrageously old-fashioned (and redundant) thing to do, but that one was antiquated, and inherited, just like the books on it.

His faith aside, Jim liked reading that Bible, a hardback with silver lettering on the cover. He had always been proud of his scientific leanings, but there was something about those passages that imbued a serene sort of awe in him (the awe was dark in colour, shaded blue), and he would feel as if he were floating in a deep sea.

There was no sense to be derived from those lines, yet he read and reread that book till the pages came apart. He didn't believe in things that go bump in the dark, but he liked to keep it on his bedside table at night, and sometimes he pressed it to his chest as if it were a small animal, felt his heart beat against the firm cardboard.

(He had requested that edition to be available on the computer library system, though he's only accessed it to check the contents page.)

Since he joined Starfleet, Jim has had no time to think about any kind of faith except the one he is supposed to have in his crew and colleagues.

Spock makes him return his attention to such irrelevant things. Jim cannot distinguish what exactly he feels when he watches Spock lean over his station, or lift a rook with a spidery hand, or in a moment of non-Vulcan weakness swivel in his chair while thinking and pick at a dry flake on his thin lower lip. And in these moments Jim does not dislike his piddling human tongue but he is struck by its gracelessness.

Spock turns to ask him something, and Jim...

( _Dark blue. Deep waters._ )

He hadn't been listening.

***

Spock seems to invite playful teasing.

"Why, Mr. Spock," Lieutenant Uhura says good-humouredly, "you should be a warning sign all by yourself."

Jim laughs along with the rest of the bridge and claps a hand on Spock's bony shoulder. (Spock looks at him sullenly, like a child, and Jim suppresses the urge to pinch his cheek). When he lies in bed that night he thinks of what Uhura said, turns it over in his head more than he would ever admit aloud.

***

It’s when they start eating together that Jim notices Spock’s unusual appetite – or lack thereof. He glances at his chicken sandwich and orange juice, and then at the pile of wilting leaves Spock calls his lunch. Spock has always been rail-thin, and Vulcans, at least in Jim’s limited experience, tend to be tall and lean. (“Beanpoles,” Bones had muttered more than once.) But now Jim suspects there might be more to Spock’s slight frame than mere genetics.

The third time he sees Spock with nothing but salad on his plate, he sputters, “I know you’re a vegetarian, but that doesn’t mean you have to eat grass. We have bread and cheese and potatoes, and everything else.”

Spock looks at him expectantly.

“I mean,” says Jim, fumbling for words, “do you dislike the food on the ship? I’m sure we can arrange for Vulcan delicacies.”

“The food here is adequate.”

“But you’re not eating.”

“I am.”

“You’re not eating _properly_.”

It takes half an hour of Spock explaining his Vulcan physique before Jim finally nods grudgingly. He still pushes a hefty piece of bread at Spock and makes him eat it, watching closely.

***

There are days when Jim wants to pick up a knife and carve the bad parts out of himself. He imagines them as bruised, browned things, repulsively soft but unrelated to gentleness. Stripped to his undershorts, he stands in front of a mirror and prods himself with his fingers in the ribs, in the gut, where he thinks those things have made a home. He falls in love too fast. He angers easily. He’s self-absorbed. Sometimes he thinks he's faked his way through the Academy.

Grimacing in self-disgust, he tugs on his clothes and heads outside to the corridor. It’s late and he hasn’t got a destination in mind. He stops by a porthole, taking deep breaths, and gazes at the net of stars slipping by. _Impostor syndrome_ , he tells himself wearily, not believing it.

When he hears faint footsteps he turns to find Spock a respectful distance from him, hands neatly behind his back. Half of him is melted into darkness, and the other half draped in starlight; he ought to look like he’s in motley but instead he appears an extension of space. Jim wouldn’t be surprised if Spock dissolved into stardust any moment now and floated out of the porthole.

What a silly thought.

“Wasn’t aware you were on graveyard duty,” he mutters. Usually, Jim would slip on his ‘chipper captain’ face, but he's frayed at the edges and the kind of tired sleep can't soothe. (He’s been told, unoriginally, that his frown could chill the deserts of Vulcan; he frowns now anyway.)

“I assure you, sir, I do not work in the mortuary.”

Jim gives a small smile at that. “What were you doing?”

“I was in the laboratory, sir.”

“I thought you said you weren’t working?”

“I was not. I was taking pleasure in my studies.”

Jim laughs, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Of course you were.” He realises then, though he had always been aware of it, that to Spock this is an alien ship, full of alien beings with alien norms. Or at least half-alien. He feels sorry for Spock, and then feels bad about feeling sorry, because Spock does not deserve pity, isn’t built of glass (though Jim suspects, at times, that he can see through him).

Something like amusement glimmers in Spock’s eyes, as if he knows what Jim is thinking. Wordlessly, he strides past Jim, towards the rec room. After a moment, Jim blinks and tries to remember what he’d been thinking about before he got here.

***

Jim wants to look properly at all the flowers, so he ends up with only cursory glances of them. While he flits around the trimmed gardens of this astonishingly lush planet, Spock trails behind him, clutching his tricorder and scowling as much as a Vulcan can. (“There is nothing interesting about these plants, Captain, and I would rather be on the bridge.”)

“Just a little longer, Spock,” Jim lies cheerfully, fondling a fern-like plant. “I miss nature.”

“All of space is nature.” Spock is beginning to use the tone he usually reserves for Bones and for diplomats with no diplomacy.

Jim bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from snickering. He decides he enjoys gardens more with Spock's exasperated commentary. With a carefully blank expression, he says, “There’s nothing natural about empty space.”

The ensuing diatribe is predictable, and Spock is a good eight minutes in before he catches the glint in Jim’s eyes and cuts himself short.

***

Bones looks dazed, like a man who’s been slapped and is just beginning to feel the sting. Jim is stunned at his own fury, his lack of control. He manages to say, “Take care of him,” and walks out before either of his friends realises he is doused in guilt.

He hadn’t meant to use that tone with Bones. Not ever, not for any reason. When he thinks about it he winces because he’s spoken to murderers and not sounded as hostile. On the bridge he flops into his chair and throws himself into his work to avoid the hot shame from eating him inside out. He was worried sick about Spock and now he’s worried sick about Bones too and his head feels light like it’s stuffed with cotton.

He calls sickbay afterwards because he can’t live with talking to Bones like that. “Bones,” he says, as gently as he can without allowing his voice to crack. “Bones.” _I’m sorry_ , he wants to say. _You didn’t deserve that. I was out of line. Please, please talk to me._

There’s no answer.

***

When everything is back to how it should be (when Spock is working his console and Bones hovering behind Jim’s chair), Jim has to force himself not to gather them both close, one at either side of him, and press their cheeks against his.

***

When he was a child, Jim would slip into dreams where a thing with his hair and his smile would clamber out of the mirror in his bedroom. It would wear his overalls and laugh with his mother and eat his pancakes and water the petunias he’d helped grow. Jim would try to touch his mother to get her attention, but his hand would go right through her and she would ignore him. After he woke up he’d hug her and sniff the faint perfume on her blouse.

He suspects this is why he is less surprised than he should be when he’s beamed up into another dimension. Aside from the jarring behaviour of the crew, the place is disorienting in its ordinariness. He wonders if this is what it’s like inside the mirror.

And now he knows there is another him, and he knows this Jim Kirk is nothing like himself or the thing from the mirror. But it is the other Spock – with the same keen eyes – that dispels some of his misgivings.

There are certain constants across universes. It is a comforting thought.

***

Jim will never get used to it.

_Gave life in performance of duty. Highest commendations. Honourable –_

Spock sits next to him, silent and unquestioning.

It's enough.

_-finis-_

**Author's Note:**

> So anyway here's my first fic for _Star Trek_ , probably littered with inaccuracies since I’m not done watching TOS and am Impatient. Hopefully my next one won’t be such a trainwreck. 
> 
> Title from _American Purgatory_ by Rebecca Gayle Howell.


End file.
